Back to the Wild center in deadly financial crisis

Mar. 10, 2014

Mona Rutger, who runs Back to the Wild wildlife rehabilitation center and nature education center with her husband, holds a snowy owl that will be an educational animal. The center is in serious financial trouble and needs donations to stay open, Rutger said. / Kristina Smith/News Herald

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Watchdog/enterprise reporter

Nature's Nursery, a wildlife rehabilitation center in Toledo, gave this pair of snowy owls to Back to the Wild rehabilitation center in Castalia. The owls cannot survive in the wild and will become educational animals at Back to the Wild. / Kristina Smith/News Herald

To donate:

Donations can be made at www.backtothewild.com or mailed to P.O. Box 423, Castalia, Ohio 44824. For information, call 419-684-9539.

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CASTALIA — For 18 years, Mona Rutger has tried to get a permit to keep injured snowy owls as educational animals at her wildlife rehabilitation center.

The white, fluffy birds are a rarity in Ohio, although an unprecedented 2013 breeding year has pushed them here in good numbers and generated renewed interest in the owls.

When a Toledo rehabilitation center received two snowy owls with broken wings — one from being hit by a car and the other from being hurt at an airport — and couldn’t release them to the wild, Rutger was ready to give them a home.

“They’re beautiful,” she said, watching the pair stare back at her with their large yellow eyes. “You can see the wilderness in them.”

Her center, Back to the Wild, focuses on nursing injured wildlife back to health and releasing them to their natural habitat. The center also keeps some animals that are unable to survive in the wild as education animals that help with programs the center gives the public.

The federal government approved the Back to the Wild’s permit to keep the owls, and the pair is settling in to their new home.

But they — and the other animals at Back to the Wild — might not get to stay long.

The center is facing its biggest financial crisis in the 24 years it has been open. The Michigan lab that is the source of donated mice and rats — the majority of what the animals there eat — has closed, pushing Back to the Wild to the brink of closing.

“I can’t bear the thought of closing it,” said Rutger, who founded Back to the Wild in 1990. “This is my life’s work. It’s very frightening.”

To compensate for the loss of free rodents — which were extras at the lab that had not been used for testing — Back to the Wild needs to come up with an extra $80,000 a year to pay for the rats and mice it needs to feed the snowy owls and other critters.

In the summer, the center goes through about 300 mice and 50 to 60 rats a night, said Heather Yount, center staff supervisor.

Although Back to the Wild receives donations from generous and loyal backers, it will need some major personal or corporate backing to keep open, Rutger said.

If the center closes, the animals there would have to be euthanized, she said. Back to the Wild, a non-profit organization, helps more than 2,500 animals each year.

Permits are required to do the work the center does, so not just anyone can take in a wild animal. And other centers and zoos have little room to take on more animals, she said.

Rutger hopes to find 10 people or corporations that would be willing to pledge $10,000 a year to keep the doors open, or several donors with pledges. She also stresses small donations are very important and appreciated and that they do make a difference.

“I’ll do anything,” Rutger said. “We’ve refinanced our home in the past to keep the center open.”

Raising rodents is cost-prohibitive and would require Back to the Wild to set up new buildings and make a million-dollar investment in the operation.

People sometimes ask Rutger why she has the center and whether she’s interfering with nature. She always responds that she is not.

Ninety percent of the animals admitted to Back to the Wild have been hurt by human activity —collisions with a plane, train or car; mercury and chemical poisoning and being entangled in fishing line.

“That is not nature, and that is why we intervene,” she said.

In addition to helping the animals, Back to the Wild provides a summer camp for underprivileged kids and numerous educational programs for people of all ages.

More than 70,000 children and adults have participated in the center’s educational programs, and it has played host to school groups, senior centers and more, Rutger said.

“We’ve had students from all grades and colleges do research here,” she said. “We’re a resource for that, and we don’t charge people.”

She does not have a closing date set, but the threat is very real, she said. When the center’s 10 freezers of rodents run out, Back to the Wild will be further in crisis.

“It’s more real than I want to admit,” she said. “It’s just a nightmare.”